Cape Town

It’s hard to imagine that the Royal Navy would have missed a task force of the size and threat that the Entente assembled in September. The simple fact was that they did not. They were very aware that something big was about to happen but, here, the Royal Navy suffered from the same problem that Moore encountered in the Pacific. Strategically speaking, the Royal Navy had been largely on the defensive since the start of the war. They had failed to over come the enemy fleet or manage to gain a definitive superiority on any body of water. They did manage to prevent their enemies from doing this but, when you are as spread out as they were, having to defend far flung sea lanes, this cannot hold forever.

When it was clear that the USN was on the move, just like with Moore in Hong Kong, Plymouth was flooded with demands for increased protection from nearly every where they maintained patrols. Even Balfour took time out of his schedule to visit the First Lord of the Admiralty and discuss the possibility of a Franco-America strike on Britain itself. For whatever reason, no one in London seemed to consider that South Africa was exposed to such a danger or, for that matter, even worthy of such an attack. After all, the canal was still open and far more efficient at moving goods back and forth to India. It was certainly not in danger of being attacked and, due to this fact, the Cape seemed almost irrelevant.

Unfortunately this was not exactly the case and while the number crunchers, at Plymouth, were well aware of this fact, the idea did not seem to have filtered up the chain of command just yet. Again, men like Balfour and Chamberlin were still thinking very much under the delusions of pre-war standards. The loss of Canada had yet to figure in their strategic concepts nor had the true impact of exactly how much merchant shipping had been sunk. While it was true that the Suez allowed for the more direct passage over seas that were far safer, weather wise, than the routes around the cape, the fact was that Britain still depended heavily on those secondary routes.

There was also the factor that only the fastest merchants were being allowed to make the run from Suez to Gibraltar, a fact that was made even more critical by the increased numbers of French airships that were now patrolling the Western Mediterranean. Many of the slower freighters were now having to use the west African route, simply because technology was now rendering them obsolete. The possibility of replacing these aging merchant ships, in the time allotted, was nearly impossible, nor could these ships be simply be retired since every ton of shipping, that could be put afloat, was now being required. It made Cape Town, a necessary port for this trade route, critical even, and that was even if London had not quite come to terms with that just yet.

It does not seem if anyone in London had quite thought this matter through until the very first cable reached 10 Downing that an Entente fleet was engaging coastal batteries in the Cape Town region. At first, there was not a great deal of alarm since such reports had been coming in from all over the world for over a week. Chamberlin even wrote down his initial impressions and he most definitely thought this was just another harassment. This may go along way towards explaining why nothing was done early on and how confusion reigned for the first few critical days of the attack.

In South Africa, Grey was not as confused but, he had more than a few other concerns, some of which, he was the direct cause of. No sooner had word of the arrival of the Franco-American fleet reached the Boers and their Zulu allies, when both stepped up their operations in an attempt to tie down as many Allied troops as possible. While this met with some success, the most important effect came from Grey’s refusal and inability to protect the considerable black populations under his authority. Hunger combined with a fear of the Zulu and it was the last straw for many who were tired of suffering. Apparently, the idea began spreading that the Americans would be much easier to deal with than the British and, when your only other consideration is being gutted by a large spear, such ideas are powerful ones. The black population in South Africa rose up against their British overlords and many garrisons would not fall from the enemy outside their wires, but rather, they would be overrun by the very people they were supposed to be protecting.

Despite the rapidly deteriorating situation, Grey still managed to pull together a force and march on the besieged Cape Town. He had to navigate through the narrow valleys that block Cape Town from the regions to the north and, it was in one of the larger valleys, near the newly minted municipal seat of Worcester, that Grey would find himself blocked by the French Foreign Legion. They would soon be joined by US Marines and, from behind, Grey learned of an approaching Boer Commando of considerable size that was led by Jan Smuts.

After weeks of disintegrating supply lines, collapsing garrisons, having to march due to destroyed rail lines, Grey’s men had reached their limits. Their ammunition was in low supply and many of his soldiers had not eaten in days. The British attacked Entente lines anyway. They attempted to break out and reach the supposed safety of Cape Town but, each attack was beaten back with heavy losses and, once Grey’s ammunition was almost gone, he contacted Entente forces and requested a formal meeting in order to discuss his terms of surrender. The single largest field force in South Africa laid down there arms two days later. Three days after that, Cape Town surrendered as well. Before the beginning of November most of the major Allied garrisons would join them.

The sea lanes around the Cape were now effectively gone. All of the critical British trade goods that flowed too and from India were forced into a single conduit that was growing ever more dangerous. This would become even more critical when a sizable Franco US Squadron dropped anchor in a long forgotten harbor called Casablanca. They were now in the a perfect position to disrupt shipping that was passing through the straights of Gibraltar, something that was more than likely going to force the Royal Navy into a sea battle that they had been trying to avoid.

On the other side of the Mediterranean, yet another threat was starting to materialize. A revolt by the Arabs, against their Turkish overlords, had been started early in the war, and ironically, by the British. When Turkey switched sides, the British had all but abandoned the Arab rebels, even if they tried keeping them on the line by tempting them with promises that never materialized. British intelligence would learn of a visit to one of the Arab camps, just outside Medina, by several Frenchmen who promised the Arabs all the guns they wanted. While nothing had come of this, yet, it was all too clear that soon the Entente would be in a position to threaten the canal as well.

When the disaster became fully realized, in London, Balfour left for Germany and spent several days in consultations with Von Bulow. Upon his return to London, David Lloyd George was summoned to the Cabinet and given a series of letters. He promptly left for Geneva and a few days later they were in the hands of William Howard Taft. The contents of these letters were promptly wired to Washington. Roosevelt was not as happy with them as one might think.

In Richmond, Joe Wheeler was even less delighted when he finally learned of the news. Confederate Naval Intelligence had not learned the complete substance of this proposed cease fire between Great Britain and the United States but, what little Wheeler did find out convinced him that Balfour might be willing to sacrifice the Confederacy if Britain got it’s peace settlement. As we now know this was far from the case but, the fact was that Balfour had not bothered to consult with either the Confederates or the Japanese and Wheeler took this as an ominous sign.

The situation was enough. Wheeler had been holding back on the CSA’s response to the US firebombing raids on the Confederacy. He now saw that he had no choice in the matter but to authorize a retaliatory strike. Unlike Balfour, he did cable his allies and announce his intentions. London was not dead set against the idea and they began to stall in Geneva.

This Confederate response was the real cause behind Wilson avoiding Taft. It was not because of any diplomatic reason but, more due to internal Confederate politics. Wheeler saw no political way out of this war until the CSA had responded to the destruction of it’s cities. They had been working on just such a operation and, now, with the shift in the fortunes of war, it seemed to Richmond as if it was the only thing left to do. Wheeler personally contacted the commander of the Confederate Air Flotilla, in Alabama, and gave him the verbal authorization to proceed.